


Hysteria

by birdbrains



Series: Old ERF [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky thinks Steve is his handler, Cuddling, Deep pressure, Dehumanization, Dissociation, Gallows Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Identity Porn, M/M, Paranoia, Snark, Trauma, deep conditioned triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 20:16:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2824814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdbrains/pseuds/birdbrains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It worked because of the way Bucky was, and when it came to that it didn't matter if it was just muscle memory, if he was a shell with the insides rotten--he was gifted with a way of keeping things going when they should have cracked."</p><p>Steve usually follows Bucky's lead when the deep conditioning triggers get set off. This time that isn't possible, because Bucky isn't himself anymore, and Steve doesn't know what to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hysteria

New foods were always a little nerve wracking because most of Bucky's triggers were tastes. It made sense, from an evil scientist perspective. The Soldier didn't eat anything but nutritional shakes, so if he ever tasted something else it would be because someone had intentionally given it to him. "Wow, Buck, you should try this great apple," Steve said once. "Uh, no fucking way," Bucky said jumping back from it like it was a rattlesnake, "and I wouldn't try me with cider either."

Sounds or words had to be very obscure lest he run into them on a mission. Taste had served Hydra well then and it served Steve and Bucky as well as could be expected now. It was better than having to be afraid of every TV show or song; those almost always were fine, except for certain kinds of music that usually didn't play in public places. They could be careful about where and what they ate. Things were getting better.

Then Sam baked them a pie and it wasn't very good and he was coming over in less than twenty-four hours. "It's just that he didn't bake the crust all the way and it's sort of soppy and yeasty," Steve explained. He had resolved to eat two pieces that night and two in the morning.

"You should be a pie salesman," Bucky said. "Soppy *and* yeasty--how could I resist?"

"The filling is good," Steve said. "It's fruits of the forest. Raspberries, blackberries, rhubarb--"

Bucky stuck his finger in the pie and put it in his mouth. He very slowly sucked the taste off his finger, then pulled it out and said, "This contains apples."

"Well, I guess they're a fruit of the forest," Steve said. "Oh. Oh shit."

"Nothing to be concerned about," said Bucky. "Set your mind at ease, Captain Rogers."

"Bucky, you want to--"

"I can answer your questions about the state I'm in, but I'm not Bucky. Actually, I'm nobody," nobody explained, helpfully.

"Well...I'm still confused because you look like the same person," Steve said, "so you'll have to help me out with some additional info."

"I'm not the same person because I'm not a person," said the man. He had a soft, pleasant voice and relaxed posture.

"He always says he wasn't a person. What's the difference between that and you?" Steve said. He was trying to be gentle but was unable to maintain a nice voice *or* posture.

"The Winter Soldier had less contact with his emotions and physical sensations than most people. If he had *none*, he wouldn't have been an effective assassin. I, on the other hand, have no emotional reactions and I do not feel pain or any other internal sensations, like hunger or boredom. This can lead to malnutrition and bowel and bladder accidents, but in certain situations it's worth the trouble."

Nobody reached down and started feeling the crotch of his pants. "Uh, yeah--why don't you go and try to use the bathroom?" Steve said.

"It's not necessary if I wear protective garments," nobody said.

"We don't have any. It's better if you just go at regular intervals, okay?" Steve was worried that if Bucky pissed himself he wouldn't be able to come up with a comedy routine about it. That outcome had to be avoided at all costs.

When nobody came back from the bathroom he resumed standing by the table until Steve suggested that he sit down. "You're right," he agreed, "his legs will hurt when I turn back into him."

"You know when that's going to be?"

"Six hours. Five hours and fifty minutes now."

"That's a long one," Steve said.

He guessed there was no reason to hide that nobody really scared him. During the paralysis Bucky hadn't been able to communicate anything, but when he was mute he was clearly still himself. Even during the paralysis, Steve could have faith that Bucky was still there and listening to him. This person--or not-person, as he preferred to be called--didn't allow for that. Steve hadn't realized how much he relied on Bucky's company to get through these types of situations. He felt himself closer to panic than he'd been in a long time.

Still, he concluded he might as well be polite and make conversation with the stranger. Even if he couldn't be offended--and who knew if that was true?--it was a good habit to be in. "So what do you do for fun, Soldier?" he asked.

"I can't answer that," the man said. "It's not a secret, but that concept doesn't apply to me because of my lack of emotion."

It was about the response Steve had expected, but the more answerable questions seemed rude. "So, uh...what's the point of you being like this? You seem like a nice guy, but you said you're not an effective assassin."

"Oh, my uses. Well, I have three," the man said. "First, I can withstand torture because, like fun, it's just not possible for me to perceive it. Second, I don't mind being operated on without anesthesia, which saves resources and cuts down on noise complaints. And third, I'm an excellent sniper." Steve was about to bluster, but nobody said, "Bucky *is* very good for a person, but a person can't have the patience to be a really excellent sniper." It was interesting to think that nobody might be proud of himself--Steve wasn't sure if he was or not. "No matter how strong his willpower is, a person will be physically affected by stiffness and lack of sleep. He might be able to camp out for days waiting for a target, but sooner or later his abilities will be compromised. That doesn't happen to me."

"So they'd send you out somewhere and you'd sit there forever?"

"Exactly. I'd take a bite of apple every six hours to perpetuate myself. By the way, do you want me to eat more of this pie?"

"*No*!" Steve yelled, yanking the plate away from nobody. "I mean, no thank you."

"Are you sure? He's going to be very difficult to handle when the trigger wears off. I'm more complicated than most of the other triggers, and there'll be side effects when I go away.'

Oh, great. "Why don't you tell me about those, then?"

"Hm." The man thought for a minute. "I know you can't use antidepressants because of your powers."

"That's right."

"Do you know anyone who does take them?"

"Sure."

"Then you know that people often have withdrawal when they stop taking antidepressants or anti-anxiety drugs. During that period, they can be more depressed or anxious than they were before the drugs. I'm no doctor so I can't explain in very much detail, but for me to be here, a lot of chemical reactions have to be suppressed. When they stop being suppressed, your friend's going to feel a sense of extreme hopelessness and despair. Since the emotions will appear to come from nowhere, he'll also be confused and start panicking, and all the emotions will work together and feed into each other in a cycle." Nobody waved his hands around in a circle trying to illustrate.

"Well, that's fucking awful," Steve said.

"Yes, that's probably what Bucky would say about it. He's certainly not very useful at those times. He's not an effective assassin, he can't be debriefed, and they can't freeze him until he finishes cycling through the withdrawal. It wouldn't be convenient if he was still crying when he woke up. Especially if it was several years later. It would be very confusing for the techs."

Steve noticed that the man was switching between past and present tense, and realized a second later that this was something Bucky did too. He'd never thought about it before. "You said this whole reaction thing happens because he's confused about what's going on. So if I explain it to him, is he going to understand what I'm saying? And will understanding help him calm down?"

The man concentrated. Finally, he said, "I obviously don't remember every detail, but I don't think anyone's ever tried that."

"But it's an obvious solution."

"Maybe, but it's also a little wasteful, don't you think? Someone has to sit there trying to explain neurochemistry to a guy who's crying and having a panic attack? So they can put him in cryo a few hours sooner? It's easier to just restrain him and wait."

Steve stood up, grabbed the chair he'd been sitting on, and threw it against the wall. Nobody sighed.

"Now your chair won't be useful anymore, Captain. If you're mad, why don't you just do that to me? I won't feel anything and, if we're careful, I can heal up by the time your friend gets back."

"Jesus Christ, do you ever stop talking?" Steve yelled. Nobody obligingly went quiet. "I'm sorry. You didn't do anything wrong. Thanks for trying to be helpful. I just don't want to hurt you--I mean, injure you. It's a person thing."

Nobody opened his mouth and then closed it.

"You can talk," Steve told him. "Christ, I'm sorry."

"I'm not offended," nobody said. "Nothing to apologize for. Being around me seems to be bothering you. Is there something useful I can do until Bucky gets back?"

Steve put his head down on the table. It was actually very helpful of nobody to offer to get out of Steve's hair, but Steve felt like an asshole. Nobody really was very well intentioned for someone who had no intentions. Finally he said, "You should make a sandwich and eat it. Don't use food that will trigger anything, including this. You should try and use the bathroom about once an hour."

"That won't keep me busy for the duration of the trigger," nobody said.

"Bucky is trying to learn computer programming. Why don't you go in his room and try to teach yourself something? I don't know what he's working on, but I guess you know everything he knows."

"That's right," nobody said. "Thank you, Captain. I apologize for making you upset."

"You didn't do anything wrong," Steve said. "I'm sorry for throwing the chair."

"Do you want me to clean it up?"

"Not your responsibility. I'll do it tomorrow," Steve said. The man got up to leave and Steve reached out and ineffectually patted him on the shoulder a few times. The man smiled politely.

Steve wished he could be genuinely friendly and treat nobody like any other person. But he felt there was nothing genuine about him--anything nice he managed to say was just because he was already thinking about Bucky coming back to himself and remembering that Steve had thrown a chair at the wall because of something he'd said.

Steve composted his servings of pie and went into his room, where he had what he considered an emotional breakdown. He didn't try to stop crying. It didn't matter. Well, it mattered because nobody might hear him, and then Bucky would remember Steve had cried, so he tried to be quiet. He wasn't very successful.

When he did get ahold of himself, he jumped up and went to Bucky's room. "Hey, Soldier?" The man looked up from his computer. "Can you come and get me right before it wears off, so I can try and talk him through it?"

The man tilted his head like he was trying to understand what Steve meant.

"I mean, do you think he'd like that?"

"I know he'd like it. I'll do that, Captain. Thank you."

"Thanks, Soldier."

Steve decided to go for a run so he could be upset without making anyone feel bad in the future. It was raining, of course. Well, that was actually convenient--no one was around, and his face was already all set for crying.

He had wondered a little--but no point looking a gift horse in the mouth--why it never seemed to shatter him that people had done these things to his best friend. The truth was Bucky had set a rattling machine into action, a kind of dance where Steve had to keep in time by staying clever and calm and doing what was needed to keep things more or less funny, to make things feel regular and relaxed even if Bucky couldn't talk or couldn't eat or Steve was learning some unimaginably horrible thing.

It worked because of the way Bucky was, and when it came to that it didn't matter if it was just muscle memory, if he was a shell with the insides rotten--he was gifted with a way of keeping things going when they should have cracked. Specifically he could make Steve keep going because they'd grown up around each other and one of them couldn't move without hitting a series of levers in the other. Bucky would have said it was an illusion, but he'd never be able to deny that it was an effective one.

Steve didn't always push himself as hard as he should, he thought; he was too used to going easy on himself because sleeping enough and eating the right foods really did matter. Just a little failure or shortage in one aspect of life--even letting himself get really unhappy--seemed to make more room for his illnesses to rush in and screw with him. It was stupid to think that way now, when he could run for twenty miles and not be sore, to think he really *needed* to be home on the couch drinking a hot cup of soup and winding down. He didn't *need* rest to keep from falling apart physically. He could run forever.

He just didn't want to, though, and the lazy part of him which was a big part said that it didn't matter, he was anyway strong; exercising helped but his body wasn't capable of getting out of shape, just like it hadn't been capable of getting *into* shape before. So driven by the laziness and the general whininess he felt after talking with nobody, he banged back up into his building and ran up the stairs and into his apartment.

He wasn't expecting to see nobody sitting at the table drinking orange juice; he had let himself think he wouldn't see him for a while; but he didn't really mind and when nobody said, "I was thinking," Steve stood there and waiting. (Nobody had cleaned up the fucking chair.)

"Yes?"

"I'm going to bed," said nobody-- "I know it's earlier than Bucky usually goes, but I sleep easier and the body could use it."

"That's a good idea," Steve said. "Thanks, pal."

"Do you want me to sleep on your bed? You said you were wanting to see him when the trigger wears off, and you'd usually have gone to bed by then."

"Yeah, that's--that's good," Steve said.

He felt a little worried--he didn't know if Bucky would remember the circumstances that had led to him being in Steve's bed; and if he was as confused as nobody said he would be, remembering might not matter. He would have said Bucky should sleep in his own bed, but it might also be scary to wake up with Steve sitting there waiting for him. He needn't have worried; nobody was characteristically thoughtful and when he'd said on Steve's bed he meant *on* it. He had fallen asleep on the very side of Steve's big bed, fully clothed and on top of the covers. Steve didn't feel too strange getting in under the covers on the other side.

He woke up with Bucky sobbing into his shoulder. "Hey, pal," he said, and Bucky started trying to apologize.

"So--" he said, and it grabbed and shook him thoroughly. "Sorry," he tried, harder, and he choked and he pushed his face into Steve's neck like he was trying to burrow inside his skin. Steve put an arm around him and pulled him closer.

"Thank you for waking me up," he said. "I wanted to see you, pal. Let me get on top of the covers so it's not so tangled." He didn't feel like Bucky understood him--he seemed to panic when Steve pulled away for a second, but soon enough they were both on top of the covers and Steve wrapped himself around Bucky again. Bucky pressed his face in again, hard; he kept his hands by his sides and let Steve hold him. "Buck, do you remember what you told me earlier? How this is some kind of chemical reaction from having no feelings for a while?"

He felt Bucky struggling to get control of himself enough to speak; then he said, "I remember."

"It's awful, I know--but I got you, and it'll pass."

They just laid there for a minute; Bucky was quiet now, shivering when Steve picked his hand up to put it in Bucky's hair and smooth it back. "Hey. Steve?"

Steve stopped moving his hand.

"Light on? Turn the light on."

Before Bucky could finish talking, Steve sat up and pulled on the cord for the big light next to the bed. He was still blinking as Bucky sat up too and sat there facing him. He took ahold of Steve's face with both hands. He didn't pull him over, but just held him there and stared at him.

Bucky looked like he'd gotten in a fight with a pair of gardening shears. He had a tendency to press and rub at his face with his hands, and sometimes it was like he forgot that he had to be gentle. Or he wanted to forget. There were fingerprints around his nose and his right eye and cheekbone.

"You gotta be more careful with yourself, Buck," Steve told him.

Bucky didn't answer; Steve saw that Bucky wasn't looking him in the eye but was scanning his face, checking for something. He turned Steve's head to the side and ran his fingers up behind his ear and into his hair. He tugged Steve a little closer to him and put his face behind Steve's ear and breathed in.

Steve didn't say anything about it.

"I'm sorry," Bucky said into his neck.

"You didn't do anything to be sorry for," Steve said. Bucky pressed against him, then pulled back, shaking his head.

"I gotta tell you something. I lied to you."

"That's okay," Steve said automatically.

"No," Bucky said, "no, it isn't. You don't *understand*, Steve--" he choked suddenly and leaned forward, catching his face in his hand.

He propped his arm up on his elbow and sat like that for a minute, shaking. Steve tried to reach out and hug him but Bucky waved him off, then lifted his face up again and swallowed.

"No," he said. "You don't--you don't understand. I *tricked* you--" he blinked a few times, keeping his gaze fixed on his knees, then lifted his eyes again. "I'm not your friend," he said, and waited.

"Why don't you tell me about that," Steve said.

Bucky said, "You're not listening, Steve! I can't help that I look and talk like him." He began to speak very levelly; he kept his eyes down while he was talking, but in between sentences they would flick up to Steve's like he was expecting to find something different in his eyes every time. "I can't help that I look and talk like him, but I can help how I've been using it. I've been using you to get all this friend stuff from you, and when you find out you're not even going to do anything. You're just going to be *sad*."

He bored his eyes into Steve but Steve had no idea what kind of response he was expecting. Bucky sighed and started talking again.

"I'm *just* your soldier. I'm not your friend. Even if I seem like I am, it's just me trying to stay out of trouble by doing what you want. That's the only thing that's left in here--" he tapped his chest-- "and that's why it's not really fair for me to let you do things like this for me."

"Things like...?" Bucky gestured, exasperated. Steve guessed, "Like be here with you when you're upset? Well, what if I want to, Buck? Is that not allowed?"

"You shouldn't want to," Bucky said.

"I don't agree with that, but if we both want me to what's the problem? Are the police going to bust in here and arrest me for cuddling on someone who isn't *really* my friend?"

"Don't be an asshole," Bucky said. He sighed. "Look, it's--I want to tell you this all the time, but usually I'm too selfish, I like being treated normal, don't want to cause a fuss. And pretty soon I'm going to go back to being like that, and thinking I can just fake being your friend and it's all gonna be fine. But right now I know it's not fine, and I'm trying to tell you, so the least you can do is listen."

"I am listening," Steve said, "but I'm not obligated to agree with you about everything."

"Oh, well, that's news to me," Bucky said.

"I understand what you're saying, but *you* have to understand I don't see it that way."

"You can't 'not see it that way'--it's true," Bucky said. "You think I'm lying? Why would I lie about this? Or I'm crazy and don't know what's really inside me? Is--" he went still and quiet for a minute, staring at nothing, then snapped back into movement and speech. He was almost snarling. "I know what this is. I know what you think. You think there's a real person inside here, that there's a normal guy who's just going to pop out if you give him enough time and patience. But there *isn't*. This leftover bullshit on the outside--and the memories--that's the closest to Bucky that you're gonna get. The inside's just gone. Scooped out."

"I know that," Steve said. "I never thought you were lying."

"Yet you still choose to spend your time with a creepy ghost wearing the face of your dead best friend? I've got your number, *pal*--you're in deeper denial than you think I am."

"Not in denial," Steve said. "And I believe what you say--it just doesn't mean to me what it means to you. I mean, you're a pretty entertaining ghost, you know."

"Jesus," Bucky said.

"Listen to what I think for a minute, and tell me if I get anything wrong." Bucky rubbed at his temples and squeezed them (using his right hand, thank God), then glared at Steve. "You don't feel like a person. You don't feel like people around you can be your friends because someone like you doesn't have friends. You feel like they're something else. Meanwhile, acting like a person and being around people comes really easy--but it feels like it's someone else doing it. That stuff doesn't match the inside, so you feel like you're this great actor who's putting one over on me."

"And you know all this how," Bucky said.

"Well, you're not telling me this for the first time, Buck, is the thing. You *do* bring it up. You don't lie to me about it. The only reason you think I don't get it is because I don't react to it the way you think I'm supposed to."

"Because...?"

"Look, I know it's awful for you. But I look at you and I see my friend. I believe you that there's nothing in there, but I also believe you can build that stuff up inside yourself again. I mean, they didn't do anything magic to make you not feel like a person, right?"

"No, they didn't."

"It hasn't even been a year, Buck. Who knows how many years that was for you. I'm not trying to be stupid--I know you think I am--but maybe it just takes longer before it's gonna stop feeling fake."

"No," Bucky said. For a second Steve thought Bucky was trying to say Steve wasn't stupid, but that wouldn't happen if Hydra had had him for a thousand years. "No, it's not going to change. You don't understand--there's nothing to build it *on*. And anyway, that doesn't do anything for the fact that I'm fucking with you and you should be really angry about it."

"Because *why*?" Steve said. "You're not gonna listen, but guess what--I have a question for you, Bucky. If you're just the Winter Soldier trying to give me what you think I want, then why are you being so straightforward about it? If you're not *trying* to actually be friends with me, it would've been easy to never breathe a word to me about how hard it is to do that. If you're just trying to give me a fake version of Bucky, then you'd never tell me it's fake. So why aren't you doing that if you're just playing me?"

"Well," Bucky said. Steve waited. "Well I don't have an answer for that!" Bucky snapped. Steve pressed the side of his hand up against his closed mouth. "And I don't see what's so fucking funny about either," Bucky continued. "About me being confused. Because the thing is you're still missing something--but it's something I can't tell you."

"Okay," Steve said. "Would charades work?"

"It's not deep conditioning, stupid. I just can't explain it. If I could put it into words, then you'd see the problem, and you wouldn't want anything to do with me."

"So that's really unlikely," Steve said. "Also--I mean--you want to consider that you're supposed to be feeling chemically sad and hopeless right now? And here you are completely sure that there's something so bad about you that I'd drop you in a second if I knew? And your evidence is a piece of logic so blinding that you can't even start to put it into words at all?"

"Really stupid," Bucky said.

"I'm just saying--look me in the eye and tell me that's not a probable explanation for how you feel."

Bucky glared at him. "Yes, okay, that's a possible explanation." He was doing a lot of glaring.

"Just come over here," Steve said. "Please."

"I'm already on the bed with you," said Bucky.

"Well, you're about three whole feet away," Steve said. He tried to look huggable without being pushy about it. Bucky stared at him for a second and then launched himself into Steve's personal space.

Again, he pressed really hard against Steve and Steve curled around him and squeezed him as hard as he possibly could. Bucky said weakly, with his face turned away, "Get on top of me? Not a sex thing, I promise--different thing, I just--"

"I'll do it," Steve said. "Show me what you need." They fumbled around for a minute and Steve kind of flipped them over and let Bucky organize him how he wanted. What Bucky wanted was to lie on his stomach with his left arm down--no, both arms down, and his head propped sideways on a pillow so he could still talk, with Steve pressing down on top of him all over. "So this?"

"Yeah. It's perfect. Okay, I'm gonna put my face down--can you put your hand in my hair and kind of hold onto my neck?"

Steve did and Bucky put his face in the pillow; it felt like he melted under Steve and Steve just occupied himself rubbing up and down the back of Bucky's neck. He always expected Bucky's hair to be hard and crackling, still.

Steve couldn't help wondering if this too was some kind of--well, not deep conditioning, but some kind of way Bucky'd been changed. Who or what was he filling in for? If it made Bucky comfortable, it didn't really matter, but he was curious.

All in all, he felt lucky to be able to help, although he always worried he wasn't really helping--but with the level of paranoia and mind games Bucky was always reading into his own behavior, it was probably only natural. Anything could be a trick. It wasn't exactly not true--it was just a completely unworkable way to deal with life.

Steve felt Bucky shake a little under him and tried to super-tenderize his neck rubbing, but Bucky turned his head up and he was laughing. "Well, hey there, Mr. Slug," he said. His voice was soft and blurry, drunk sounding. "Jesus, Steve, is there any situation where you *don't* get an awkward boner?"

"Shit, sorry," Steve said, rolling off him. Bucky half-turned onto his side to face Steve, and he reached out and held on to Steve's shoulder with his left hand. His eyes were half closed.

"I don't *care*," Bucky said. "It's just kind of funny he can't behave himself when I'm all messed up like this. Not a very polite mollusk."

"What can I say?" Steve said. "He's a man for all seasons." Bucky started giggling like a crazy person. His grip loosened on Steve as he lay flopping around on the bed, and then the metal clamped down on him and Bucky pulled him over and kissed him on the ear. It was very loud. "Ow," Steve said.

"I"m sorry," Bucky said. "Your shoulder okay?"

"Your hand didn't hurt me, that was just really loud on my ear," Steve said.

That made Bucky laugh too. "You know, whatever you are to me, I really like you," he said.

"Well of course you do," Steve said. "I'm Captain America."

That set Bucky off terribly. He rolled around on the bed laughing, looking for all the world like a fish with three human limbs and one metal arm attached to it. This time, the laughing started to dwindle down until Bucky apparently re-experienced the joke and was overtaken by gales of laughter again.

"Am I really that funny," Steve asked.

"Not hardly. It's probably the mood swings, but it's better than the alternative, right? Plus you are pretty funny," Bucky said. "As if anyone *likes* Captain America."

///

The next day he seemed back to normal and they talked about it a little, but not very much. First, Bucky saw the pieces of the chair in the compost bin and he said, "I'm sorry I upset you so bad."

"No, *not* sorry," Steve said, then realized how shitty that sounded and said, "Fuck, I'm sorry. I mean, I shouldn't have thrown the chair."

"I know I'm creepy when I'm like that," Bucky said. "You kept it together the best of anyone, to be straight with you. A little property destruction--and it's your own property, too--"

"Threw the chair because they fucked with your head and then ignored you," Steve said, "*not* because of anything about how *you* were acting."

"Well it's true that I wasn't too convenient when I was crying and carrying on and just trying to cling to everybody within reach," Bucky said. "Kind of a subpar way to kill people, with a bunch of hugging."

"You mind coming over here?" Steve asked all embarrassingly strangled. Bucky rolled his eyes and Steve knew he was being too emotional about it, but Bucky still came over and let Steve do some clinging and hugging and carrying on of his own.

"Great, you just broke my entire rib cage, I hope you're proud of yourself," Bucky said. "Anyway, it was Hydra--they weren't running a day care. You pick kind of strange things to be upset about."

///

But later he said, "Hydra was really stupid."

"Oh yeah, what was your first clue?"

"Don't mock me," Bucky said. "I'm just thinking--they passed up a golden opportunity to make me super loyal to them. I would have done *anything* for you last night." Steve winced. "Quit that, anybody would react like that if they were crying and some giant mammoth of a person shows up to take care of them. I'd have blown up the planet if you asked me to."

"Well--"

"--not too interested in blowing up the planet, I take it?"

"It's not a bad idea," Steve said gravely, "but I want it to be *your choice*."

Bucky laughed and started doodling something on a piece of paper he'd found by the side of the refrigerator. "I'm saying, I got to be pretty convincable in that state, so why would they ignore me? Dumb fucks. They could have got me in way deeper if they just acted like they cared about me a little. They'd probably still have me."

"Well," Steve said.

"Yeah," Bucky said. "So pretty good they're evil, and all of that."

///

It was true--for all his chair throwing, Steve had to be pretty glad that Hydra was so evil. Things could be a lot worse, he was thinking, when Sam came over and Bucky fell quickly into laughing and talking with him the way he always did. Sam seemed good on the surface and was good almost all the way through, and so Bucky didn't find it hard to trust him.

The only thing was, he never wanted to tell Sam any of the bad stuff, and he didn't want Steve to tell him either. He seemed to be under the impression that Sam couldn't handle it. Bucky underestimated Sam's understanding of badness, Steve thought, but he was under no obligation to spill his guts to everyone he liked spending time with, and it didn't really matter. It was probably important that he had a friend who didn't know the details.

Steve didn't know what to do when Sam examined the list of items Bucky had scribbled and then stuck to the fridge with an ugly magnet. "Ginger," Sam read, "caramel, apples, and whiskey. Weird kind of shopping list, I have to say."

"It's a list of food allergies," Steve attempted.

"You people don't have food allergies," Sam said. "And here it says 'certain types of disco music.' Now, I know you can't eat disco, Steve. I've tried."

"It's my deep conditioning triggers," Bucky said, to Steve's surprise. "Like the other time you were here, and I couldn't talk? It's because I ate a caramel hard candy."

Sam wilted. "Oh no," he said, "the pie--"

"The pie was great," Steve said. "It was educational. Now we know what the fruits of the forest are."


End file.
